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The Most Human Color III
"The Most Human Color III" is an Extended Universe oneshot written on DATE. Summary a summary of the thread's events here, including spoilers and important plot details. Check the Order of Threads to see if the thread you are placing already has a summary, to make less work for yourself. Full Text The people that rescued him took good care of him. But they also asked him to work hard with the other half-breeds. Milae did so, because he was curious, and again…he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. There were a lot of sparring with sticks, and running until he could hardly breathe, and training with men that barked orders. But the man that had first fed him in the tent, Owen, was very kind to Milae. So he stayed. They moved across the land, setting up their tent every night, until they came to a large city with lots of low-ceilinged buildings on its edges, where all the half-breeds stayed for months. Months and months. He started to lose track of the time he spent there. But he had friends, and he had a safe place to stay. He still stayed. The captains were pretty mean and unfair. Milae’s armor was heavy and itchy. The two half-breeds he grew closest to was a tiny, fluffy, dark-eyed fox named Tulli, and a well-built stocky boar named Bhaem. The entire squadron grew close, but the three of them were nearly inseparable. They traveled to villages and stood guard while the captains took care of business that they didn’t really understand. This was where Milae learned what hanging was. The Sleipnir Squadron was threatened with it constantly. But it was only then that he saw just how brutal the actual punishment was. He had nightmares about being strangled by rope for weeks. It definitely convinced him to stay. Time seemed to stretch on endlessly. The only thing Milae had to mark the passing weeks, then months, then years, were his intense visions, but nothing had really changed about them, either, only that they grew more detailed and brighter. He constantly saw a huge structure that looked like it was made of icicles, pointed high towards the sky and blindingly bright as the sun shone through them. They annoyed him most of the time, instead of inspiring him; they threw off his focus and the vivid distractions were the cause of several beatings. He kept an eye out for any such buildings or formations in his deployments, but he saw nothing of the sort in the Wild South. He began wishing he could run away. They were told they were being assigned to a place called High Central the next day, a place that Milae had heard good things about. But only from the guards. Tulli and Bhaem didn’t know much about it, but they didn’t seem happy about it, either. Milae was all right with it; he heard there was more food and more people, both of which they had been wanting for in the wilds. The scale of the city didn’t register with him until he caught his first sight of it from the infantry wagon, and he almost fell off from hanging out the side to see it. It seemed to take up almost half the horizon, even more so the closer they got. There was an incredibly tall alabaster wall, and here and there along its length it was scorched and chipped away by previous assaults. But the blemishes were small; the wall stood strong and solid. They passed through a gate taller than the tallest tree Milae had ever seen, and began rattling over a bridge that spanned a gap of enormous proportions, deep and cavernous and rushing and howling with a fast-moving river being fed by several waterfalls that seemed to come from the city itself. They passed another wall, and then another. With each checkpoint, the city unveiled buildings, and more and more people living in them, walking the streets, causing a rush of noise and smell and sight, and most of all, watching the convoy as it entered the city. Milae beamed upon seeing them. But they did not seem quite as friendly in return. “Why are they looking at us like that?” Tulli whispered, as a knot of soldiers in much more polished High Central garb grinned at their wagon and talked to each other behind their hands as they passed. “I dunno,” Bhaem snorted, cracking his knuckles. “But I’d sure like ‘em to get a piece of me!” “It’s because we all look funny,” the half-breed to Milae’s right joked to him over the bustle of the surrounding crowd. Milae looked forlornly at the citizens as they approached the biggest wall yet, and then down at himself. That’s what seemed odd, he realized. Among a sea of people, of all different shapes and colors, there wasn’t a single half-breed he could see among them. Remembering his home, and his family, every single one a proud Caprinae with thick fur and long horns and strong hooves, it was a shock, a contrast, and it made him homesick. “Do we?” he asked tremulously. “Nah. They’re the ones that look funny.” The half-breed put up a clawed, scaly middle finger to someone in the crowd jeering at the convoy, and their captain smacked him across the back of the head. “Best behavior.” “Why?” he complained, rubbing his head and wincing. “They’re being awful. We can’t be awful back?” “I don’t give two rat’s dicks, soldier. You’re under evaluation from here on out, and so are we. Best. Behavior. That’s an order.” Milae was trembling lightly. Evaluation. The towers of High Central cast huge, long shadows as the final gates opened, and the squadron looked up at them, eyes wide. Milae couldn’t comprehend their size. They were like mountains–no, like trees, like a vast network of huge trees in the way they connected with each other with spiderwebbing bridges and banners and flags waving like long, loose leaves in a wind so high in the sky that it couldn’t be felt on the ground. They didn’t get very far past the last gate; they turned to the left and pulled into a spotless courtyard outside what was obviously a barracks. The squadron unloaded in neat ranks and stood at attention while the captains spoke to other captains, all the half-breeds trying their best to hold still while also taking in the massive city around them. They were barked at to get inside. They did so gladly. It had been a long journey. The food was still sparse, but much better quality than gamey meat and old bread rations. Milae was glad to see more choices that appealed to his appetite and took the opportunity to consume more greens than he usually did, although they were clearly a little old and wilted. “What do you think of the big city?” Bhaem asked Milae and Tulli, leaning back and putting his arms behind his head. “I don’t like it,” Tulli said definitively. Milae hesitated. “It’s…okay,” he finally said. “I suppose.” “It’s so noisy,” Tulli complained, her massive ears twitching back and forth. Milae sympathized; he could hear the continuous clatter of the outside world, but likely not to the extent she did. “Woods was noisy,” Bhaem noted. “That was different. This is…this isn’t nice.” Her eyes grew a bit watery. “I want to go home.” “It’ll be okay.” Milae put a hoof on Tulli’s shoulder, and her wide, dark eyes turned to him. “We’re all here. We’ll make it work.” She threw her arms around him in a tight hug, and Milae rested his chin on her shoulder, his eyes falling upon the far end of the mess hall. There was a knot of human soldiers at the entrance, their meal having ended before the squadron’s started, and they were regarding the half-breeds with something that made Milae feel ill and shaky. He met the gaze of the one nearest to them, a young man with tousled black hair and teal eyes and dark freckles, and the soldier smirked at him, pushing a thumb past his lip as he wiped at his mouth. He said something inaudible to the men standing around him, and they found it tremendously funny. Milae felt several pairs of eyes on him, and he hugged Tulli tighter, finding it difficult to breathe for some reason. The soldier bit down on the tip of his gloved thumb and then flicked it out from behind his teeth in Milae’s direction. The goat squinted at him in confusion. With a teasing wave, he followed his friends out of the mess hall and further into the barracks. “Milae?” He hurriedly let go of Tulli. “Sorry. I guess I’m nervous, too. I don’t…like the people here.” Bhaem chuckled at that. “Seems to have caught on,” he said teasingly. Milae frowned. “I don’t think anyone here likes half-breeds, Milae,” Tulli said quietly, with her paws hiding in her lap. “Why not?” “Because…” The boar had to think about the question for a moment. “Well, I don’t know why. We could ask them.” “No!” she cried out. Milae hushed her as the squadron looked around at them. “He’s only joking. We won’t do that. We’ll just follow orders and do our best.” “Mmmmm-hm.” Bhaem had an eye on the door that the human soldiers had all filed through as he picked at his tusks with his fork. Milae struggled to sleep that night, torn between waking nerves at their new home, and the restlessness he gained from vivid, unsettling images he saw in his sleep. He saw a man–a boy, really–in green robes with an owl on his shoulder, and the sight of him brought a sharp, spiking headache to Milae. A quick flash of sensations–the curve of a wooden bow, a curtain of fire that hissed into smoke, ripples stretching outwards on a dark lake. He saw another on the edge of youth and adulthood, but this time a half-breed, though his features were difficult to make out past a blinding white light shining from behind him. He had tall deer’s antlers and firm shoulders, and as he gestured with a hand, his fingertips trailed golden light. A sudden tightening feeling wrapped itself around Milae’s neck, as though a pair of hands had seized him around the throat, and he coughed and choked and tried to cry out as they forced him to the ground, squeezing tighter and tighter. There was another burst of light, a searing wave of heat, and an explosion of chattering voices along with an indistinct keening, ringing noise that grew louder and louder and louder– Milae’s goat legs jerked involuntarily and his back arched as he sucked in a breath, his eyes opening to the dim roof of the squadron’s new quarters. He had a hoof grasping at the fur on his throat in a desperate attempt to relieve the terrible feeling of being strangled, and as he shuffled in his cot, he blinked in surprise as he sniffed wetly, realizing that he had been crying in his sleep. He rubbed away the wet tracks on his cheeks and turned over, staring at the softly rising and falling lumps of blankets that lay next to him, and tried to go back to sleep, but it evaded him. Instead, his thoughts were full of fire and water and antlers and words in a language he didn’t understand. Fórna. Endurreisn. Umrót. Skuld. The unfamiliar sounds pounded in his head until the sun rose and their new regiment in High Central began. Category:Events Category:EU Category:Extended Universe Category:Yun Milae Category:Tullli Category:Bhaem